Congratulations to Vivian Gornick, Margo Jefferson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ruth Franklin, finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards. We also congratulate Grace Schulman, recipient of the Frost Medal, as well as Coates, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Linda Nochlin, who appeared on thePEN Literary Awards Longlist.
Luc Sante’s book The Other Paris, the subject of one of last semester’s NYIH lectures, has been reviewed in The New York Times and The Independent. Read his interviews with The Paris Review, The Guardian, Guernica, and Metropolis.
Robert Boynton has released a new book, The Invitation-Only Zone, about a group of Japanese citizens abducted by the North Korean government. Read the reviews in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Larissa MacFarquhar takes a close look at the psychology of altruists in her new book Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. Read the reviews in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Economist.
In Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War, Ian Buruma weaves his own voice into letters his grandmother and grandfather wrote to each other during World War II. Read the reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Darryl Pinckney’s new novel, Black Deutschland, tells the story of a Chicagoan in Berlin in the 1980s. Read the reviews in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
In Better Living Through Criticism, A.O. Scott makes a case for the importance of criticism in everyone’s lives—and gives reviewers a chance to talk about their own craft. NYIH fellows Laura Miller and Michael Wood shared their thoughts for Slate and The New York Times. Read about Scott’s road trip with Christian Lorentzen in Vulture.
Some highlights in criticism and arts coverage include Vivian Gornick on the pleasure of rereading books in The New York Times, Laura Miller on the resurgence of the housewife novel in Slate, Francine Prose on the film Carol in The New York Review of Books, J. Hoberman’s reflection on the film Son of Saul in Tablet, Barbara Ehrenreich on the selfish side of gratitude in The New York Times, and Arthur Lubow’s look at Louise Bourgeois’s apartment, also in The New York Times.
As the primaries begin, NYIH fellows are chiming in on the 2016 presidential race. Katha Pollitt and Laura Miller wonder why Hillary Clinton takes the blame for her husband’s transgressions in The New York Times and Slate, while Ta-Nehisi Coates cites her misunderstanding of history in The Atlantic. In Tablet, Paul Berman explains why we love to hate Donald Trump, and Michelle Goldberg argues in Slate that his popularity shows the waning influence of the religious right.